Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, March 3, 2005

But this morning, she'll be helping sweep streets or scrub graffiti off a building downtown, the same neighborhood where she was caught Monday morning stuffing stolen cosmetics into her duffel bag.

Yesterday, she sat in a Seattle Municipal Courtroom as presiding Judge Fred Bonner made her one of the first people sentenced under a new program started by City Attorney Tom Carr and the Seattle Municipal Court.

Modeled after programs in Portland and New York City, the new Community Court tries to save the cost of jailing minor criminals by giving 10 people a week -- arrested for quality-of-life crimes around downtown and surrounding neighborhoods -- the option of doing community service and hooking up with social services instead of going to jail.

Most visibly, though, the criminals will be required to do such things as picking up garbage in the same neighborhoods where they've caused problems. Swanson, 41, and Michael Barsch, 23, who was arrested Monday shoplifting a 1-liter bottle of Dr Pepper at the same Bartell Drugs store where Swanson was caught, sat in the courtroom yesterday wearing red jumpsuits with the words "King County Jail" on the back.

This morning, they'll be wearing their street clothes -- and a bright orange vest with the words "Community Court" on the back. From the bench, Bonner said, "We're recognizing that communities can be victims of crime, just like individuals can."

Merchants around Pioneer Square, who've long complained about quality-of-life crimes, applauded. Tina Bueche, owner of the Synapse 206 clothing store, said, "They're contributing a lot more than if they were sitting around a jail cell."

Carr said jailing the criminals for minor crimes costs about $92 a day. Yesterday, as first Barsch and then Swanson sat at the defendant's table, Bonner asked Carr what his office would have normally recommended. "Three hundred sixty-five, 245," Carr said both times, meaning 365 days in jail, with 245 of them suspended, for a total sentence of 120 days behind bars.

Both were given 16 hours of community service and five days in jail if they don't complete their work and make contact with drug treatment and job training programs. The sentence goes up every time they come back to Community Court.

The two weren't required to finish drug treatment, only to meet with the programs. As Barsch was sentenced, Dave Chapman, the managing director for the Associated Council for the Accused, which provides public defender services for the Community Court, said the city was taking a novel approach by giving Barsch the chance to get treatment instead of requiring it.

"We know," Chapman said outside the courtroom, "that there's more chance of success if they're given the chance to do something rather than being forced to."

Swanson was grateful. Life has been a "revolving door" of being in and out of jail and drug treatment.

"I think I'm ready to do it this time. ... I've been doing this for 25 years." Though she has to sweep the streets, she said, "It beats sitting around in jail with nothing to do."